I am in California (again) attending a few days' internal meetings. When I am here, I usually drive to work from Cupertino to Menlo Park. The normal way will be Highway 85 connecting to 101 and exiting at Willow.

In San Francisco Bay Area, almost all highways have one lane marked as "car pool lane." Only cars with more than 1 person may drive on these lanes. Californians like to enact laws to influence social behavior. Car pool lanes is one of those thing. In that spirit, hybrid cars, even within only one person in them, may drive on those lanes too.

This morning, driving by myself, 6 Toyota Prius zoomed past me in the car-pool lane. Yes, 6 in a row proudly enjoying their privilege.

Only in California.

You read my A New World, Again blog. You wondered, where is that new web site and blog I set up? Did I do anything interesting over there different from here?

There will be.

Someone once said to me, "Blogging changed my life. I now view everything as how to blog about it." I am not that extreme. I am, however, very aware of Sun's hosting role in my blogs. I want to write things that really have nothing to do with Sun: a memoir, a fiction, some politically incorrect opinions, etc. I would share them with the public, a different one that overlaps, but not coincides, with the readership from blogs.sun.com/syw.

This is the intriguing characteristic of communities: one and so many at the same time. An individual can be a member of many communities and maintains his or her distinctness among all of them. I am part of many communities, one of them is Sun employees. Another one exhibits as Nomadic Minds. These two blogs will diverge and frequently overlap, just like myself belonging to many communities that intertwine.

Hope to see you in both worlds.

What a game! SuperBowls historically are boring. Guacamole, tortilla chips, pizzas, and, of course, lots of beers kept us in the game. SuperBowl party is as much as an excuse to ignore all social or dietary rules as a serious sport event.

This one is different, a nail biter, a shouter, a surprise, and worth every guacamole and chips. I carefully computed the time difference and woke up early searching for the game. ESPN, Star Sports, or other usual US channels all doing something else. Eventually, I found a Japanese channel that carried the game live.

Here I am, watching SuperBowl at 6am with Japanese commentaries with a tolerating and wife trying not to wake up.

Contrary to its name, American Football is really closer to Rugby than Soccer. The objective of the offending side is to advance the ball until it enters the end-zone. It has 4 opportunities to move forward 10 yards. If successful, it gets another 4 chances. Otherwise, it must yield the possession of the ball to the other side.

The players wear protective gears underneath the uniforms to make them look super-humanly strong. The helmets and the general atmosphere make it like a battle.

And a battle it was. New England Patriots entered the game with a historical perfect record of 18 wins and zero losses. Tom Brady, its quarterback, is experienced and in his prime. The game looks all but claimed before it started. Soon, Patriots was ahead 7 to 3. It looks like another boring game.

By the 4th quarter, New York Giant scores a touch-down and was ahead 10 to 7. No problem, Tom Brady coolly threw a touch-down and New England was ahead, again, 14 to 10. New York had less than 3 minutes left. Quarterback Eli Manning needed to score, quickly. He used up all 3 time-outs, miraculously connected with his wide receivers, and dramatically made a touch-down with 35 seconds left for Tom Brady to perform his magic. He needed more than that and left Arizona without a SuperBowl ring.

Over a mountain of snow, on the ski lift, at Tahoe, Nevada side, I tried to converse with this young snowboarder. Ski lifts stop and go that day. It can be a long ride uphill, even longer in silence.

And it became too short. This kid (a late teenager) has her own domain; she has her own blog, photo galleries, and an on-line fiction in the works. She is adapt with Photoshop, PHP, JavaScript, sound editing (so that she can PodCast), video editing (so that she can YouTube), etc. She does not know what OS the server runs. She interacts with the host server via ftp and a simple "control panel" interface. She pays for these services out of her allowance: about US$30 for 6 months.

What has this world come down to? This is an ordinary wiz kid. She has skills and resources available only to highly paid, well budgeted professionals with several years ago. Yet she believes she is just a kid trying to snowboard better. What used to be a career is now a junior's hobby, and not even a serious one. (Her hobby is snowboarding and creative writing. Web is for keeping up with her friends.)

Am I so out of touch with the real world now? I can hear my kid teasing me, "Daddy, you are oohhld."

I went home, registered a domain, and signed up a hosting service. I downloaded WordPress and experienced their famous 5-minute installation. I perused a large collection of themes, chose one, and customized it with simple PhotoShop and a bit PHP. After that, I imported most of my current blog entries. The whole thing took about few hours over 3 days. The theme selection and customization took the longest time.

What an experience! The kid is much less impressive and intimidating after. I have experienced, first handedly, probably a bit late, this new world I am living. I can do everything the kid did at ease (technically speaking, not content-wise or stylistically) and at the price that is negligible to all businesses. It is easy, it is cheap, it serves all purposes. The technologies have matured for the mass.

Embrace for impact.

I rarely have writer's blocks on concepts; it is the mincing of words that stumped me. I envy those who have proses flowing out of the keyboard effortlessly. To me, chiseling on granite.

It seems fitting to commemorate the passing of 2007 with a blog. What exactly to write stomped me for days. The year was a big motion blur. I never had time to reflect and digest what happened.

My travel spreadsheet shows that I made 13 international trips in 2007 (and several China domestic ones). It is really profoundly pathetic that one has a travel spreadsheet. Thirteen trips translate to an average of alternating 18 days at home and 10 on the road. I am always away from my family. I became chemically dependent on sleeping while traveling. I ate unhealthy foods (weakened will power) and exercised much less when traveling. On the bright side, I blogged regularly and read much more too.

This is the milestone 1st empty nester year. The younger daughter cut her hair short and spread her wings to a US college. She left behind much to tidy up and an eerie empty echo in her room. The well-made bed and uncluttered carpet startled me at first. It took a while to remember there is no longer a teenager living there. I will call her to dinner only to swallow the sound half-way. This is fine. We did this once with the older one. It will pass, in few decades.

Several vacational trips with friends and family are so precious. All of us are coming of ages now. Weakened muscles, slack skins, and senility are common to us. Few drinks at the dinner will find us all snoozed at the sofa. The two most talked about topics are investment and chronic diseases. Hey, lives are good. Let's play "When I'm 64" instead of "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da."

China quickened her already break-neck speed growth; work intensified few notches up. My flight schedule is a clear indicator. As I rooted deeper in China, every trip back to US felt less like going home. I may be approaching that invisible point of no return. This is a bit scary.

2008 scares me. I can feel its enormity and speed. I am not prepared for 2008. Then again, nor was I 12 months ago.

Reuters, on Dec. 19, reported that Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would ban all toys made in China. "The Japanese do this on food, they basically say to China, you cannot import food unless you meet our safety inspectors." He said.

Who gets hurt if the US bans China-made toys?

Factories in ShenZhen, China, made the toys. They came to the US most likely at the Long Beach port. From there trucks carry them to to a store near a consumer. This consumer pays for the toy and give it to someone, probably a child.

During this whole process, the manufacturing part (in China) got just a fraction of the total value. Most of the money goes to the retail chain and the toy brand owner, like Mattel, a US company. Mattel employs many US employees. More importantly, it has many US shareholders. Banning toys import hurt the US more than China.

Many unsafe toys are made in China, but not all bad toys are made in China. China made many unsafe toys, but not all toys made in China are not safe. China is not the only country that produces unsafe toys, nor is she producing only unsafe toys. The criteria of the ban, as proposed by Mr. Obama, is not logical in achieving the goal — allegedly to eliminate all unsafe toy from US market.

This proposal hurts US economy and is not effective in achieving its goal.

What's really going with this subprime thing? Why is it wreaking havoc for the USA, even the world?

In USA, like most of the world, people borrow from the bank to buy houses. If the borrower checks out, he or she gets the house and pays monthly mortgages for a long, long time. For those who the banks think are too risky, that they may not afford the monthly mortages, they are out of luck.

Then someone invented subprime: loans with very low mortage payments. All of the sudden, many more can afford houses. It is good for everyone: developers keep on building, real estate agents keep on selling, consumers keep on buying houses, and banks keep on lending money and raking in interest payments.

There is a catch. The payments are low only for a while, in a few years bank will drasticallly increase the monthly payment. There is no free lunch. Those people really just shifted payments to the future. The loan becomes a race: or gamble. The house buyers need to generate higher income, refinance the loan, or sell the house before the payment goes up. Otherwise, the bank will foreclose the house and evict them.

The gambling factor turned housing market speculative. The recipe is simple and straight-forward. Buy with cheap loans. Sell quickly whenever the price goes up. Pay back the loan. Repeat. Wait! This looks like the famous bubble. The price cannot keep on going up. The last one who cannot sell will lose everything and face bubble burst.

Some loan agents turned nasty in certain areas. They lured people with "cheap money" and waited. In a few years, either they make lots of money with the higher interest, or they get the collateral when the borrower cannot make payments. It is predatory.

It gets even worse. Since banks knew these loans are risky, they unloaded them quickly. They will bundle these loans together and sell it to the general public as a "high yield annuity." Banks keep the proceeds from selling the package and the general public owne those risky loans, now disguised as high-yield investments. This is almost a scam.

Finally, future arrived. The housing bubble reached the last fools: the one who cannot sell his/her house. The victims of predatory loans bankrupted. The banks cannot dispose thousands of foreclosed houses. The investors lost money. Institutes that underwrote those investments must close. It is a big a mess.

Simply, subprimes infuse the society with money from the future. US consumers simply spent those money, instead of putting them to good uses. When the future catches up, there is no money to pay back. Economy shrinks, companies bankrupt, people lose jobs, and lives become hard.

Governments knew that it is much better for countries to grow steadily than gyrate between booms and busts. This means the scape-goat hunting season is now open. Hey, some heads must roll.

You know it is coming and you are defenseless as naked. Yes, the cold season is upon us. Bring out the usual arsenal: the hand sanitizers, sometimes just soap and water; the Airborne style homeo preventives, including the trusted high-dosage vitamin-C; even the flu-shot in hope that the recipe is right this year — all in vain. Sneeze, cough, running nose, fever, watery eyes. You've got it. Keep yourself hydrated and rested. It will pass in a week or two. There is nothing you can do now. Or, is there?

There is the recent Zinc lozenges surge. Take several a day and you heal faster. Of course we will always have chicken soup and that nose twitching warm lemon and honey drink.

Visitors to China may peruse the impressive collection of herbal cold remedies in any pharmacy here. The lack of (western) scientific credential does not equate ineffectiveness or shortage of testimonies. In fact, many use them before those chemically synthesized healing options. Tastes like tea: strong and pungent.

TongRenTang (同仁堂) is the golden brand for Chinese herbal medicines. Two of their classic recipes rake in millions every year in this season. BanLanGen (板蓝根) became the miracle elixir during the SARS episode. GanMaoQingRe KeLi (感冒清热颗粒) packages literally fly off the shelf whenever someone in the office sneezes.

As an experiment, I bought 10 boxes each last year to the office and offered them to whomever. They disappeared with a trailing blue smoke. A few days ago, I brought in 20 boxes each. Gone in a flash too. My unscientific survey shows over 80% of Sun's China employees will take them as preventive measure or to speed up recovery. Even westerners also swear by them.

And the best part? It costs 10rmb per box of 10 doses. I think that's cheaper than chicken soup.

Earlier this year, I noticed a particularly blue-sky day in Beijing. It is seasonal, Beijing's winters are either terribly foggy or in the color of "Olympic blue."

The smokestake grew by probably 10 to 15 meters and acquired some cosmetics. I am not sure it is connected to the Olympics, but was not pleased to learn the construction was not to take it down.

A Howard W. French questioned, on International Herald of Tribute on November 2nd, 2007, if the deeply rooted American values of democracy and check-and-balance are really superior. What if Beijing is right?

I have long explained to people that China's current governance model has existed for over 2200 years. The system experienced ups and downs over these centuries and had a bad phase from mid-1800s to early 1900s. Before that, it was the most powerful and prosperous country in the world.

Jared Diamond, in Guns, Germs, and Steel, tried this China puzzle with a geographic slice. He observed that, culturally and geographically, China is homogeneous and uniform, as contrast with Europe be heterogeneous and diversified. What's most interesting to me is America's entrance to this great social experiment few hundred years ago. In a few centuries, would some comparative governmental historians make a conclusion?

A centralized, non-elective government can make fair, but not just, decisions, faster. It can sacrifice few for many — economically right decisions but sometime not humane. To avoid debilitating corruptions, China has a power transfer scheme that has worked quite well for the past 30 years.

Are democracy and freedom-of-speech good for all civilizations all the time? Americans viewed this very question as religiously condemnable. You can hardly blame them. Their mere few hundreds years of experience had hardly been tested by any serious challenges: except for now.

Jammie Thomas was devastated by RIAA by making copyrighted songs available for others to download. They traced her via an IP address. Her service provider betrayed her by linking the IP address with her real identity and provided this link to RIAA.

Yahoo betrayed Shi Tao and devastated him no less drastically than Ms. Thomas. Like Ms. Thomas's service provider, Yahoo did so in compliance to the laws. Only that Yahoo complied to China law, instead of US. For that, Jerry Yang, CEO of Yahoo, received tongue-lashing from Congressman Tom Lantos as a "moral pigmy."

Companies violated US laws all the time: minimum wages, maximum working hours, accounting principles, environmental protection, working conditions (OSHA regulations), etc. It is OK to do so outside of US soil and be in compliance with laws. Yahoo did not even violate any US law, only a value system and an ideology. This theater, therefore, is to send a message to China government, "We don't like how you govern."

Jerry Yang and Li Tao's family are merely political props.

For the past few years, I frequented this neighborhood barber shop. I will pick a time (like 9am on weekends) to minimize the wait. The services are presented cafeteria-style: cutting hair, $1; shampoo (dry), 50 cents; shampoo (wet), 25 cents; blower styling, $1; etc. I usually get the package deal that takes care of everything I need for about $2.5. The young girl will either shampoo my hair with me sitting up-straight (dry-style) or lying down (wet-style). Afterward, one of the chain-smoking barbers will put out the cigarette and do his thing. Great deal? You will have to come to Beijing for such excellent value.

For frugality, I could have gone to the park and have my hair cut in the open air. I would walk up to an empty stool, get hair cut, and be done in less than 10 minutes. The master will do it almost entirely with a manual tool. There is no water nearby; I would have to shampoo at home. The standard price will be roughly 75 cents. I actually never tried this, but stood and watched many times.

My 80+ year-old father visited me last summer. One day, he took his daily walk in the afternoon and came back groomed: hair neatly trimmed, face well-shaved, lightly greased, combed to perfection. "How?" I inquired. Proudly, he told me about this hole-in-the-wall barber shop and an improv conversation with the proprietor, an elderly in his 60s. One thing led to another, my dad had a 90-minute old-style service — 50s-style: hot towel, lathering cup, and the scary straight razor. Yes, that master did the stroking the blade on a strip of leather thing too. Two old men clearly had a great time. My dad insisted paying the barber 10rmb, or about $1.25. Otherwise, the services will be free of charge.

When my daughter was going to the prom, she needed services at a completely different level. After checking out with friends, she locked in this place in the Oriental Plaza, downtown Beijing, where reservation with a stylist will be the right protocol. The project needed several hours to produce nothing short of a breath-taking "wow!" I meant her hair, but the price tag too.

One day, we discovered this fancy store. Curious, we approached. Gosh, it is a beauty shop with lots of glitter, modern and high-class decors, spacious reception area, eager staff, espresso bar, and chilled mineral waters neatly displayed. The attending staff was reluctant discussing prices, "We do not have standardized services. Everything is customized to your needs and desire." "If what I need is a simple trim, wash, and blow-drying, how much would that cost me?" "Well, we specialize in tasks more complicated than those. But if your wife is also patronizing, we could also serve you on the side..." Only after we had walked out of hearing range, I let out the unbelievable "WHAT THE H..."

Few days ago, we were surprised to see this beauty shop inside a mall, "Hmm, let's check it out." Trim/wash/dry services for men, by the most junior-ranked stylist, list at $12. I decided to give it a shot.

A uniformed girl put a light gown over me, and led me to the shampoo station. She checked with me if the temperature was right 3 times. She then led me to the chair where a fashionable girl was waiting. She quietly unfold her nicely wrapped toolkit, arranged like surgical instruments, and chose her tools for the task. She then performed this dance for about 20 minutes in silient concentration. The shampoo girl stood watching on the side only to brush away trimmings on my face once in a while.

With a proud nod, the performance is over. I was led away for another shampooing (checked 3 times again). When the cutting girl dried my hair, she transformed into a relax, pleasant, and chatty person. At the end, they unrobed my gown, bowed, and bid me farewell.

"Market economy at its best," I thought on my way home.

Guess which school my kid is in?

The envy is so ironic, "You get to visit places, stay in nice hotels, get chauffeured around, eat in restaurants every meals, skip all chores. Life must be wonderful." Yah, right. Most business travelers will trade all that for their own beds and homemade fried rice.

I wrote recently, "Shackled on that [air plane] chair, I always imagined my life leaking out through those jet engines into that vast water below." To me, business trips are lonely, boring, and taxing to health and relationships. After few years, I concluded that jetlag resistance is not trainable. One does not recover quicker from jetlag if do it frequently.

Some business travelers sleep well and most not. They end up so tired after a long flight that they collapse into the hotel bed. There begins the vicious cycle of waking up at the wrong hour, only to doze off in the afternoon board meeting or during the socially intense cocktail hours. My circadian rhythm takes 2 to 4 days to restore, during which I would have less than full productivity. I cannot afford either.

What is the trick? Chemical sleeping aids. The choices are many: alcohol, Melatonin, Tylenol PM (Acetaminophen plus Diphenhydramine), Nytol (Diphenhydramine only), and, the chosen by most pros, Ambien (Zolpidem). Ambien puts you to sleep quickly (in about 15 minutes) and will be gone from your system quickly too.

Everyone seems to have a different way. I take the drug during the flight, when I am supposed to sleep according to the destination time. After arrival, I will struggle until normal local sleeping hour before I take the drug. I will repeat for 2 nights and wean myself starting the 3rd. Anil does it differently. He takes no drug during the flight then do it for 3 nights after arrival.

According to Anil, Scott has a different style. He stays awake during the flight and go to sleep soon after arrival, only to set the alarm to wake up around mid-night. At that time, groggy as hell, he takes the pill and fall back to sleep few hours longer. Jim does it the same, only that he takes the drug when he go to sleep with a shot of whiskey. This is the "booster" concept: Scott does it half-way during the night and Jim adds alcohol in the beginning. Dinesh has yet another approach, like Scott, he just go to sleep whenever he is tired. When he wakes up around 2 to 3am, he takes half the normal dosage (5mg) and sleep until morning.

Globalization. Try living it.

I grew up knowing few forms of alcoholic drinks: hard liquor (BaiJiu: 白酒), milder rice wines (HuangJiu: 黄酒), and beer. Honestly, the idea is getting others drunk and staying sober at the same time. Social cohesion and the capacity to hold liquor are more important skills than the ability to distinguish the finer flavors of the drinks.

Much older, I met Kathy and a group of wine fanatics. They taught me this new alcoholic drink called grape wines. (And yet many years later, Crawford taught me whiskey.) I learned how to swirl, hold the glass to the light, sniff, sip, and make some comments. Those who really know me will snicker, "Sin-Yaw has no taste buds on wines." They will be right and we all knew it does not matter. The real important skill is not to be able to tell the difference between a $15 bottle and a $20 one, but to appreciate the drink and enjoy the company or the foods. As Rich said, "The lubricant of conversation."

Recently, I found out that a few people in China are at the same stage I was many years ago. "This is cool," I thought. "How about wine tasting in China?"

As far as I have observed Kathy's parties, this is how:

1. Decide a theme:

   First choose a theme for the tasting. This is usually arbitrary and up to the host. The typical theme surround grape varietal or region: Shiraz, Cabernet, Southern Italian, etc. At the same time, choose a price guideline for the participants.

2. Infra-structure:

   Wine-tasting parties need many glasses, a spit bucket, a clean water source to rinse the glasses, and a stain-resistant surface.

   Glasses should be transparent and easy to swirl. They don't need to be expensive. Spit bucket is for throwing away wines: a normal and perfectly OK thing to do. Some people intend to taste many wines and do not wish to get drunk. Others simply do not like the wine enough to finish the glass. Water is for rinsing the glasses. Some people prefer to rinse the glass before trying a new wine. Lastly, wine pouring can be nasty on delicate surfaces.

3. Foods:

   Foods serve to cleanse the palate. In between wines, it is necessary to remove the tastes of the previous wines from your mouth. Eating simple, non-spicy and not too salty foods are best. Crackers, french bread, and simple cheeses are popular choices.

   Coffee, either ground or beans, is the best olfactory cleanser. Sniff the coffee in between wines to restore fresh scent.

4. Wines:

   The host should secure enough variety and quantity for the participants. Average person can consume about half a bottle without too much trouble. Each "serving" should be about a quarter glass or even less. The point is to taste wines and not drink them.

   The host should make sure the drivers are sober before leaving. This means at least an hour without taking any alcohol before driving.

   Of course the focus of the party is to talk about the wines just tasted. Some kinds of note taking devices will enhance everyone's knowledge and memory.

Internet offers wealth of information on this subject. I read the quick online wine-tasting course and went to UC Davis site for its tasting wheel too.

Now I am ready to be invited.